It’s the evening before my 40th birthday, and it would be very easy to let myself slide into a wallow of all the things my life isn’t, all the achievements I’ve failed to reach, all the things that feel wrong about my life.

Failed marriage, single motherhood, still renting after all these years, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia radically changing the quality of my life, finances in rough shape, career at a screeching halt due to Heath issues, Depression, bad relationships, bad decisions, missed opportunities, the list could go on.

Taking a deep breath though, I make myself think of the positives, the things I did accomplish, where things could have gone so much worse ….

When I saw things were wrong in the marriage, I had the courage to speak up. We did what was best for our child and ourselves and din’t put our child through years of fighting and bitterness.

I got saddled with the debt that accrued during the relationship, yet I managed to pay it off in only a couple of years. That’s a pretty amazing accomplishment, especially considering how bad it was.

I have a wonderfully imaginative, active, caring young lad. He has absolutely no doubt that he is loved.

I learned to knit properly, and discovered how to make things mine. I learned patterns are guidelines, not laws. I discovered a love of fibre, and opened myself up to learning new things, and not just about knitting.

I have met so many many wonderful people. I’m sure many I wouldn’t have met if I made different choices, and I am glad of all the friendships I’ve had.

I learned to speak French very well, and even found that I enjoyed it.

I rediscovered a love of photography.

Pre-cancerous cells were discovered and removed early enough that they never turned into anything scarier. A few years after, I learned of a friend who was not able to have children of her own as she’d not wanted to deal with regular doctor visits. What if I’d made different choices?

I have a University degree and a resume that while not exactly what I might wish it to be, is also nothing I am ashamed of.

Only 1 speeding ticket, and two minor accidents in my 23 years of driving … Would be nice to stick close to those numbers for the next 23!

I have an endless capacity for love.

I never stop hoping completely. I have had some really awful moments. Some deep dark pits. Times of wondering what the point is and much, much blacker thoughts. There is ALWAYS an ember deep within though that refuses to go out, and I have been stubborn enough to be able to fan that ember back into flames time and time again. Which explains why I chose a Phoenix for my tattoo. My life has felt like it’s been in ashes on more than one occasion, but I always manage to fly again eventually.

I am a little bit crazy, and I like that about myself. I like that I can giggle about splashing in puddles, that I make “that’s what she said” jokes with my friends, that I sometimes make the car “dance” and so many other silly little things. I think life doesn’t have enough laughter and joy in it, and you’ve got To laugh when you can.

I am a bookworm. I am a bit on the geeky side. Sensitive. Quiet in crowds or with people I don’t know that well. Shy about new situations. Scared of change. I’ve learned to embrace all that and challenge myself on some of it.

There’s so much ahead of me still.

I might never own a house. And that’s ok. I’ve learned how to make a home. It’s very unlikely I’ll have more kids of my own. There’s so many who can’t have any. My health will never be the way it was but it could be so much worse. The finances won’t always be this rough. I won’t always be single, but I’m also not going to settle for a relationship for the sake of having someone. There’ll be more rough times, more dark patches, more challenges, but there’ll also be more hoy, and laughter and hopefully more peace with myself ahead.

It once was I would see a pattern I’d want to knit, pop a post-it on the magazine page (this was before ravelry even existed you see), then take myself off to LewisCraft (ok, dating myself HORRIBLY with that admission!), and pick out what I though was a comparative yarn. I used to (shudder) do this by picking something I liked & checking it against the pictures of (actual size) yarns used for projects to see if it matched. I’d buy the needles and home I’d go, to cast on.

No, I did not knit a gauge swatch. I’d never heard of the beasts.

So I’m sure if any knitters happen to read this entry you’ll be chuckling t yourselves and imaging just what kind of results I might have got. and you’d be right!

Any wonder I gave up on it after a couple of years?

When I was pregnant with kiddo however, I was hit with the desire to knit him some things. I had another disaster with a sweater, and wisely decided on a baby blanket next. Gauge does NOT much matter for a baby blanket I’ve found!

I was given a stitch dictionary as a gift the year kiddo was born and that made a WORLD of difference to my knitting.

I learned what a gauge swatch was. I learned there was more than one way to cast on! More than one way to decrease. I learned MANY things from that wonderful book.

Not too long after the book came Wanda. Wanda knit socks. Beautiful socks. Many, many socks. She kindly took me under her wing and showed me how to cast on to fiddly dpns. She held my hand (well not literally!) as I nervously turned my first heel. She talked about CHANGING and TINKERING with patterns! She led me to Lens Mills Store, where there was a lovely selection of sock yarn. From Wanda, I learned that my knitting is NOT the boss of me!

After finishing my first pair of socks, I was enamoured. I made more. I experimented with circular needles. I searched out knitting blogs and discovered Wendy Johnson’s toe-up socks. Magic!!! I started building a wee stash of sock yarn. i attempted a hat for kiddo and it FIT! I stumbled across the Yarn Harlot and learned even more about the joy and frustration and love of knitting. somewhere in the blogosphere I learned about a new craft website called ravelry.

Ravelry made my head EXPLODE! the patterns!!!! I spent DAYS browsing the patterns and drooling and queuing things up. I ventured timidly into the forums. I learned about alpaca. and merino wool. and acrylic vs natural fibre. I learned out Yarn Stores and visited the two in my town. All of a sudden, I had a Stash.

I started a lace scarf. Discovered it’s not the easiest thing to concentrate on with a toddler around. So cast on for socks, which by now I could do in my sleep. Wait. TWO projects on the needles at the SAME time??? *GASP*!

Well …. any knitter know how it goes from there! Today I have TWO rubbermaid bins of yarn plus a small basket of sock yarn. I have two different socks actively on the needles, a shawl I’m halfway through, a Beekeeper’s Quilt puff just started, and probably half a dozen other projects on needles that I’m planning to get back to soonish. I want to swatch for a sweater in the next few days and have just promised kiddo another sweater. I may have said something about making my niece and nephew Christmas gifts and then there’s the softer-than-a-kitten’s-butt cashmere that jumped into my hands that is begging to be made into a soft cowl fr chilly mornings … and yeah. I want to knit ALL the things. From project monogamy by the rules to gleeful make it my own knitting slut.

I can’t seem to work out what it is I’d really like to do job wise. Where it is I’d really like to live. What it is that would help bring more happiness, contentment, joy, laughter, fufillment to my life.

I’m not looking for a magic fix. I know life isn’t perfect. I know the journey can be as important as wherever it is we think we’re headed. But when it doesn’t feel like you’re headed anywhere, that’s pretty damn discouraging.

Friendships seem to be in flux. Distance, time, geography, stage of life, and such things seem to have placed me at a distance from those I was once close to.

One in particular continues to puzzle and confuse me. We were so close just a couple years ago. He spoke about the importance of vulnerability, openness & honesty. We shared painful things, scary things, and seemed to make a deep connection. Yet since then, he’s pushed me away, shut me out, refused to let me very far into his life. I find it hard not to be hurt.

I know friendships come & go. Doesn’t make it easier to feel the lack of any close ones.

You may include books you re-read, as you re-read them between April 1 and 30. You may also include books you start but don’t finish, just note the page you gave it on or roughly what percentage you read. Children’s books should be at least 125 pages long to be counted. (Books you read to your children, if they are at least 125 pages, would also count.) If you wish to participate, leave a comment with link here!

The Child & I visited the Wye Marsh in Midland yesterday for their annual Sweetwater Festival and had a wonderful time cooking & tasting bannock, watching the trumpeter swans, tasting the maple syrup poured over snow, and my favourite part, feeding the chickadees. I had three of them eating out of my hand and am thrilled to have managed a decent picture of one here!

So not only did I *meet* my original goal for the knitting Olympics, but I surpassed it! I completed my sweater in ONE WEEK flat! I am still a little stunned I managed this – the long weekend at the start of the Olympics sure helped a lot with that though! It does still need buttons, but thiose are coming in the mail and to me, it’s done to the extent I’d envisioned! Here’s my kiddo modelling it:

So with the sweater being done at the end of week one & a touch over a week left to go, I picked up a languishing project and finished up a toy for my niece. Technically it should have been in the WIP dancing category only, but I submitted it to skele-gurumi before reading the limitations of WIP dancing, oops! So on ravelry, it’s a skele-gurumi, but I’m celebrating both here – it’s my blog after all! 😉

I also cast on for a sweater for my niece! I made excellent progress on this, falling short of a finished object by one sleeve – I choose family time outside on the final weekend over knitting & think I made the wise choice! 😉 The sweater will be ready in plenty of time for her birthday!

HURRAY! to Canada HURRAY to Olympic Knitters! HURRAY to all the wonderful folks who made these Olympics so wonderful!

So i decided to jump into the deep end of crazy and committed myself to knitting a sweater for myself for the Knitting Olympics.

I have knit all of 3 sweaters in my knitting life & the quickest one was done in 3 months, so attempting to knit one in 17 days seemed rather daunting! To add to the challenge, I decided I wanted a cardigan, but wanted to knit in the round, which meant steeking, something I’ve not attempted before.

I cast on with the start of the opening ceremonies and this is how far I got in a single night – not bad at all!

I’ve been threatening my co-workers for a while now that I was thinking of blogging the various conversations that go on in our lunchroom. They can be so … bizarre sometimes. I doubt I can in any way begin to capture the odd nature of the twists and turns but thought I might actually have a go at sharing some of this strangeness.

Today’s conversation began with talk of the upcoming Polar Bear Dip. Several co-workers are planning on taking the plunge and one was thinking out loud about how she was going to prepare. We were enjoying take-out Indian food, so she pondered eating that just before to help her feel warmer. Another co-worker commented on a polar dip done recently in Russia where the participants had supposedly enjoyed several shots of vodka and found that helped them dive into the icy cold more easily.

Somebody said it should be re-named the Vodka Dip then, and somehow that caused us to picture dipping in vodka, which then led to discussion of having a vodka bath. So then we wondered how much alcohol would be absorbed by your skin while soaking on a vodka bath .. . but none of us could imagine anyone eanting to waste that much vodka for a *bath*.